


Negative Space

by darklyndsea



Category: Forever (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blanket Permission, Gen, most deaths happen off-screen, permanent death, some characters live (others do not)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-16
Updated: 2015-04-16
Packaged: 2018-03-23 05:37:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3756403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darklyndsea/pseuds/darklyndsea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>16 Dead in Subway Crash</em>, the headline read.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Negative Space

_16 Dead in Subway Crash_ , the headline read. The small seed of hope that had started to grow deep within him died. He was still alone. He would always be alone.

 

Abe smiled to himself over breakfast. Henry hadn't returned home yet, and he hadn't called to ask Abe to pick him up from jail or bring him clothes, so maybe he'd actually managed to go out and have some fun for a change. Abe hoped that was it, not overtime again. The man deserved some fun for a change.

Enjoying the thought and the obituaries, Abe never even saw the headline. _16 Dead in Subway Crash_ , it read.

 

Jo didn't make a habit of hanging out in the morgue, but even she could tell that something was off today. The medical examiners went about their work as usual, but . . . she couldn't put her finger on it, but something was different.

"Dr. Washington," she said, spotting the man preparing to start an autopsy. "Detective Jo Martinez. You have a cause of death yet on the conductor?"

"We're a bit short-handed today," Dr. Washington said with a bite in his voice, "since one of our own died in the crash as well. I'm just about to start the autopsy now. You'll have the results by the end of the day." He dismissed her from his notice and turned to his assistant, a tall, quiet man with red-rimmed eyes. "Lucas, have you prepped the body?"

 

"Detective," Dr. Washington said, approaching Jo's desk.

"Dr. Washington. Have you finished the autopsy?"

"The toxicology reports will take some time to come back, possibly as long as three weeks, but I do have a preliminary report. I thought you'd want to hear it as soon as possible."

"All right. What did you find?"

"Although the conductor was in poor overall health when he died, I found pulmonary edema which is a strong indicator that he was poisoned." He handed Jo the folder with his report. "I'm ruling it a homicide unless the tox report comes back clean."

"You do realize the gravity of what you're telling me?" Jo demanded.

"I realize that you now have 16 homicides, and one of them was our colleague," Dr. Washington said, staring intently at her over his glasses. "You catch this son of a bitch before he hurts anyone else." Jo had worked with Washington before; he'd always seemed detached from his work. There had never been any indication he could be so . . . intense.

"All right, I'll get right on it."

 

Subway surveillance videos played throughout the room, studied by various NYPD employees. Jo poured herself a cup of coffee and headed over to join in.

"This would be a lot more effective if we knew exactly what to look for," Anita said to Jo.

"Just anyone looking suspicious getting on or off that train," Jo said. "The M.E. thinks the conductor may have been poisoned."

"With that kind of directive, should have something in no time. Sorry, Jo, this could take days," Anita said. "Why don't you go home? I'll call you if I find anything."

"I'm fine," Jo emphasized. They watched the video for a few seconds, then Jo noticed something. "Follow that guy with the pocket watch. I can't make out his face." To her frustration, he didn't turn toward the camera. "Can you push in on that subway window?" The video zoomed in, and the quality was good enough to make out the face. "Can you do facial recognition on that?"

Anita was already shaking her head. "No need." She pulled up the photographs of the people who'd died in the crash. "Dr. Henry Morgan."

"Doctor? Was he the M.E.?"

"You know about him?" Anita asked. "Yeah. From what I've heard, the guy was weird and had a tendency to blow up cases, but he was pretty much a genius at his job."

"Damn," Jo said. "We could have used his help on this one." She sighed. "Well, on to the next suspicious person." It was going to be a long night.

 

Jo's phone woke her. For a moment, struggling to get free of the blanket that covered her, she couldn't remember where she was. But blinking dry eyes clear, it all came back to her. The subway crash. She'd fallen asleep in her chair, and apparently somebody had tossed a blanket over her.

"Detective Jo Martinez," Jo answered her phone.

"Detective Martinez." It was Dr. Washington.

"Dr. Washington. Have you found anything else?" Jo asked, suddenly wide awake.

"My assistant, Lucas, spent the night going over the conductor's body and found a puncture wound behind the ear, as well as a fingerprint in the same place. I've sent you an email with the print. I suggest you run it through your system as soon as possible."

 

Jo turned to the officers following her. "His name's Hans Koehler. No priors, but he was a chemist for Dow until his wife Karen was killed falling onto the subway tracks."

"The driver of the train that killed her… same conductor that was just poisoned," Hanson continued. "We've got a search warrant based on that and a fingerprint found on the body. Everybody, be careful. Guy's poisoned one person already, killed sixteen total; who knows what he's capable of?"

"We're looking for poison, but the tox report hasn't come back yet so we don't know what kind. Look for medications, chemicals, anything like that. The conductor was injected, but the poison might not be stored in liquid form." Seeing the comprehension of the officers, Jo knocked on the door. "Dr. Koehler? NYPD! We have a warrant to search the premises!" There wasn't any response.

"I don't think he's home," Hanson said. "You break down the door. I'm gonna take some guys around the back."

Hanson led the officers around the side of the house.

"Bag that rat," he told one of them.

"The rat?"

"Looks like it's been poisoned," Hanson explained. "Might be rat poison, might be it ate some of the poison that killed the conductor."

They continued and came to a greenhouse filled with all the same kind of plant. They were pretty and all, but it didn't seem likely that Koehler was growing them all just cause they looked pretty. But when they reached the garage Hanson knew they'd struck paydirt. He radioed Jo immediately.

"Jo, you're gonna want to see this," he said.

"What is it? And where?" She asked.

"Garage out back. Guy's got a lab, and it looks like he's been making something out of some flowers he's been growing."

"Flowers?"

"Yeah, I know, sounds stupid, but some of 'em are poisonous, and this guy's got the know-how to extract the poison from them."

"What the hell?" Jo asked in stereo, coming in the door. They hung up their phones. "What was he _doing_ in here?"

"Hopefully the lab geeks can tell us." They heard a car pulling up and silently agreed to hide until Koehler was away from it and unable to make a getaway before they arrested him.

Koehler entered the garage, and they came out with their weapons up. "NYPD! Hands where I can see them!"

"Take it easy," Koehler said.

"Put your hands up," Hanson ordered.

Koehler's eyes darted between them, and he made his decision. In one swift move, he grabbed a beaker filled with purple stuff and threw it at Hanson. He darted back out the door. Jo and Hanson ran after him, shooting, but they didn't manage to hit him before he got into the car and sped away.

"Ah, my hand!" Hanson exclaimed. His hand looked like something from a horror movie.

"Wash it off!" Jo exclaimed. "We've got to wash it off!" They rushed to the sink and started washing it off.

"I don't think it's working," Hanson gasped, and collapsed. Jo caught his fall enough to cushion him. "T-tell Karen and the kids…"

"No! Mike, hold on! Call the paramedics!" Jo shouted to an officer. But it was already too late. One last pained breath, and Mike was gone.

 

"It's aconite," one of the techs said. "And it looks like he had a couple more gallons of the stuff here."

"Gallons?" Jo demanded. "What could he do with that much of it? It didn't take much to kill my partner."

"He's planning something big," the tech said. "That much aconite could kill hundreds, maybe more."

"Well, how's he going to administer it?" Jo asked. "He's not going to get that many people by running up to them one by one."

"Oh. Oh shit," the tech said with dawning realization. "We found ethanol in the casks, and thought he must have been cleaning them, but what if he was aerosolizing it instead? Shit!"

"Aerosolizing it?" Jo's blood ran cold. "We need Homeland Security on this. Is there anything here that might tell us where he's going to use it?"

"There are some blueprints, but they're not architectural plans."

"Well, what are they then?" Jo snapped.

"I don't know! They're like the zodiac but upside down."

"Like in Grand Central?" the Lieutenant asked.

"Grand Central?" Jo asked.

"I read the tourist brochure when I moved here," she replied. "It stuck with me. They claim it's to represent the perspective of God."

"Hey, where'd Koehler's wife die? What station?" Jo asked.

"42nd and Park… Grand Central," the Lieutenant said. "I'll call Homeland on the way."

 

As the officers split up to evacuate Grand Central, a thought struck Jo: how would Koehler distribute the poison? Aerosol… it could be some sort of a bomb, but air was already being sent all over the building by the air conditioning system. What if Koehler used that somehow?

Jo didn't know much about air conditioning systems, but she did know that in a place like this there would be intake vents on the roof. There were enough people working on evacuating the station and searching for Koehler within; she could be spared to check her long shot on the roof.

She burst onto the roof with her weapon drawn, but after a few seconds of walking around and calling out for Koehler she started to feel a bit silly. He wasn't here, and she'd wasted time that she could have been helping—

The pain was like nothing she'd felt before. A moment later she heard the roar of the gun. Koehler was there, but there was nothing she could do about it. She couldn't even focus her eyes. The world was blurry as Koehler walked in and out of her field of vision.

Her thoughts were fuzzy (blood loss, a part of her mind murmured). She should know what he was doing, but when she tried to think of it her thoughts slipped away from her like she was trying to hold on to a handful of sand. She was fading in and out, losing time here and there. It didn't seem to matter. Koehler's rant to himself didn't ever seem to change. She'd fade out in the middle of a sentence, and the end of the next made just as much sense as an ending for the first.

"They'll remember her name!" he shouted angrily, apparently finished with what he was doing. "They won't forget her! Those bastards at the MTA—" He continued in the same vein for . . . Jo didn't know how long; her sense of time was working about as well as her body. Just get up! she screamed at herself in her mind. All she accomplished was twitching her fingers.

Koehler stopped suddenly and dropped to sit on the roof. "They'll remember her name," he told himself once more, brokenly, and started to sob into his hands.

Jo couldn't hold on to consciousness any longer. Everything went dark.

 

" _—pled guilty this morning to 2,879 counts of first degree murder_ ," a TV droned in the background. Jo ducked her head further down over her paperwork, trying to shut out the sight of Mike's empty desk.

"Detective Martinez?" It wasn't a voice she recognized.

"No comment," she said automatically.

"I'm not a reporter." That caught her attention. She looked up to see an old man, maybe 70 years old. His face was filled with laughter lines, but he didn't look at all happy now.

"Okay. What can I do for you, Mr. . . . ?"

"Abe Morgan," he said. "I'm Henry Morgan's next of kin. The guys in the lab said you might have some of his personal effects?"

"Oh! Right." Jo opened her drawer and pulled out the pocketwatch, still in its evidence bag. She should have put it in lockup, but somehow she hadn't been able to let it go. "This is all I have. Did you get the rest of his personal effects already? I can show you—"

"No, I got them already, and cleared out his office too. The watch is the last of it." He poured the watch out of the bag into his hand and stared down at it, his expression unreadable.

Jo shuffled her paperwork around, preparing to get back to work.

"Why don't you come get a drink with me?" he asked.

Jo's head snapped up. "Uh . . ."

He waved a hand. "Not a date. No offense, but you're a little young for me. But you look like someone who needs a drink, and I know _I_ do."

"I'm on duty."

"I've been watching you for a while, and you haven't gotten anything done," he coaxed. "Come on, I'll tell you my best stories about Henry."

"I didn't even know him," Jo protested. But after a moment she caved to his hopeful puppy dog eyes. "All right, fine, let's do it."


End file.
